Warren — Shawn Fain ended his speech to a crowd of cheering United Auto Workers with a promise: The race to the bottom ends Sept. 14.
That is when the current contract between union workers at General Motors Co., Stellantis NV and Ford Motor Co. and the three automakers expires. Fain, UAW President, said negotiations over new contracts are slow and criticized the companies for expecting UAW workers to “settle for scraps” while they rake in profits and dole out generous benefits to their executives.
“I don’t want to hear that talk anymore,” Fain said to the crowd. “We deserve this. You deserve this.”
Hundreds of members gathered for an energetic “Solidarity Sunday” at the pavilion at the UAW Region 1 office in Warren on Sunday afternoon. They wore red, carried signs, shook blue pompoms and shouted their support when speakers called for unity as the possibility of a strike looms.
The UAW has approximately 150,000 members working at GM, Ford and Stellantis. The union is demanding a 46% wage increase over four years, a cost-of-living allowance, pensions for all, expanded worker protections and more paid time off.
Members are holding strike authorization votes through next week, which, if approved, would give union officials the ability to call a strike. The union recently raised strike pay to $500 per week per member and touts a strike fund with more than $825 million. The fund is earmarked for all members, not just those in autos, and would last 11 weeks if Fain ordered members to strike all three automakers.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re skilled, it doesn’t matter if you’re a supplemental worker, it doesn’t matter if you’re full-time workers,” said UAW Region 1 Director LaShawn English. “You are each other’s brothers and sisters. Learn that word means.
“It doesn’t matter who goes out. We’re all going to be there.”
The last UAW strike took place in 2019 against GM. It lasted 40 days.
Representatives from the automakers said they are working on an agreement that will work both for the workers and the companies’ futures.
Stellantis spokesperson Jodi Tinson said discussions are constructive and collaborative, and will lead to a future “that better positions the business to meet the challenges of the U.S. marketplace and secures the future for all of our employees, their families and our company.”
Ford said it” looks forward to working with the UAW on creative solutions during this time when our dramatically changing industry needs a skilled and competitive workforce more than ever,” said Kelli Felker, Ford’s manufacturing and labor communications manager.
A GM representative directed a reporter to an Aug. 4 company video of GM’s global head of manufacturing Gerald Johnson, who said the company is focused on bringing all of its employees along on the electric vehicle transition and touted GM’s recent investments in some of its plants.
Nathan Burks is a team leader at the Stellantis Mack Assembly Plant. He has worked the last seven days straight and took a vacation day to join the rally and support Fain.
Burks said a number of the union’s demands are important to him, specifically the cost-of-living allowance, wage increase and getting rid of a tiered-worker system that allows for some workers to be paid lower wages.
He pointed to the skyrocketing price of a gallon of milk and healthy food as a clear reason a pay increase is necessary.
“How are we going to maintain (our lives) if we stay stagnant at the same pay?” Burks said.
The auto companies don’t value the lives of their working-class employees the way they value the lives of their white-collar employees, Fain said. He said that’s why the UAW is pushing for a 32-hour work week – workers deserve a work-life balance that allows them to rest and spend time with their families.
“One question,” Fain posed to the members gathered at the rally. “Why the hell isn’t our time as valuable as any other white-collar worker in this world? We’re human beings. Everybody’s time matters.”
The disparity between treatment of white-collar workers and working-class workers was displayed during the pandemic, Fain said. Working class employees were deemed ‘essential’ and ordered to show up on factory floors or risk losing their jobs “while the educated people sat safe in their living rooms, working from home.”
Josh Harper contracted COVID-19 at work at US Farathane in Port Huron, a plastics manufacturer that supplies the auto industry. Some of his coworkers died from the virus, which they also caught at work, he said.
Harper said it’s insulting that the companies they sacrificed their health for are unwilling to budge at the bargaining table.
“It’s a shame that the demands the companies are giving the UAW are so unrealistic, but then they’re coming back and saying our demands of being able to live, and maybe live happy, are unrealistic,” he said. “It’s hard to know that the companies we break our back for, that we miss birthdays for, that you miss kids’ school recitals for, are coming back and saying ‘hey, we want you to keep doing that.'”
A strike may be what it takes to make things better for workers, Harper said.
“The only way to really get them to do what needs to be done is to affect their bottom line, affect their checks,” he said. “That’s what a strike is going to do.”
ckthompson@detroitnews.com
Reporter Kalea Hall contributed.